February 23rd
by Webster13
Summary: Alternately "Agent Sean Pendrell Is Dead." Because this was a guy who should have made it. Also, it's a shame Pendrell doesn't have a character filter option.


_So this is what dying feels like_.

Agent Pendrell had, of course, as a scientist with an interest in many topics, learned how dying was supposed to go in various situations. Hypothermia caused numbness and fatigue. Heart attacks could make a person feel dizzy before passing out. Presumably, passing in one's sleep was the least disruptive and easiest way to go.

Getting shot in the chest, it seemed, was on the exact opposite side of the spectrum. At first, it felt like someone had punched him really, really hard, knocking him to the ground. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move. Then the pain hit him. It felt like someone had set his skin on fire. He could breathe again, sure, but every inhale was agony, and every exhale had blood coating the inside of his throat. Oh, yeah, and more agony.

Not to discredit the all-consuming pain of a punctured lung or anything, but the shame of it was really the timing. Of all the days of the year he could die, it had to be Dana Scully's birthday. He'd even gotten her a fancy candle from that snazzy bath shop in the mall, her favorite specially picked out. (She'd been talking to Agent Mulder one day about how much she liked the smell of vanilla, and if he just so happened to overhear from the other side of the lab, it wasn't really eavesdropping, was it?) He'd been dying to see the look on her face when she unwrapped it. Now, apparently, he was just dying.

Through the red haze that was currently making it awfully hard to concentrate, he saw Scully bending down, pressing something against the bullet wound in his chest and putting her face closer to his, speaking calmly and clearly. Something about paramedics, going to the hospital.

"You're going to be okay," she insisted. She seemed so sure of it that Pendrell could almost believe it himself. He tried to agree, but he realized as soon as he had started saying something that any kind of clear vocalization wasn't going to happen right now, so it came out as a pained gasp.

She paused, then added, "Look, we still haven't celebrated my birthday, Pendrell. I'm not going to let you off the hook like this." He smiled, giving a shaky nod. He wanted to see her again, see her beautiful red hair, piercing blue eyes that looked green in the right light. But his eyes had closed involuntarily and it was all he could do to keep breathing, don't panic, keep breathing. Don't look wimpy in front of Scully. Don't ruin her birthday more than it already has been. Keep breathing.

He heard the paramedics come in with a rattling ambulance stretcher. Scully stood and started explaining his condition. Hands were placing an oxygen mask over his face. Someone took the gun off his belt. He was lifted up onto the stretcher and his eyes opened a fraction of an inch, and there she was, Special Agent Dana Scully, for what could very well be the last time. She stood across the room, watching him. The room was dim, as bars tended to be, but as he was wheeled backwards toward the door, he could see the blankness of shock over her face, staring over her shoulder like she was afraid to confront the scene before her. He closed his eyes, content to have the face of the cleverest, boldest, most beautiful woman he'd ever had the luck to meet as the last thing he'd ever see.

 _You're going to be okay_. The words echoed in his head. He clung to them as the rest of his thoughts drained away through his chest. _Oh, Dana_.

The sounds around him, the paramedics, the ambulance siren, the beeping of machinery, began to blur together, becoming an almost distant white noise. The pain exploding from between his ribs seemed to lessen. His breathing slowed, and he could no longer conjure the will to force himself to inhale, exhale.

People who receive a point-blank gunshot wound to the lung with only a handful of napkins to stem the flow of alcohol-thinned blood do not end up 'okay.'

They end up dead.

o0o0o0o0o0o

(A/N): DON'T WORRY, THERE'S MORE. Agent Pendrell was one of my favorite characters and I didn't think he deserved to go out like that. Stay tuned if you agree. : )


End file.
